Amid the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I often make time to contemplate the virgin birth of Christ and the wonder of God’s plan for salvation. Surely these most basic precepts that are the foundation of Christianity strain every stricture of scientific explanation and natural thought. Yet they are universally accepted at face value by almost every professing Christian.

And although belief in the miraculous often declines as the level of one’s education increases, a recently released national survey announced that as many as 74 percent of doctors believe that miracles have occurred in the past and 73 percent believe that they can occur today. Thirty-seven percent believe that the Bible’s miracle stories are literally true and 67 percent believe the Bible was written or inspired by God.

Despite these statistics and the miraculous foundations of Christianity, there is widespread reluctance to believe in the miracle of creation. More often, the Genesis account of creation is categorized by interpretation, dismissed as allegory or totally ignored. Why is that?

Is it some lingering desire to hold onto the intellectualism touted by secularists, a futile attempt at compromise with the world of academia or simple indoctrination through cultural influences?

Surely anyone who grasps and believes in the virgin birth of Christ and the miracle of salvation cannot doubt God’s ability to speak the world into existence. So the question is: Does God really want us to believe in the miracle of creation?

The answer came to me years ago as I sat meditating on the opening verses of my morning devotion – Hebrews 11:1-3. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made of what was visible.”

In my musings, two things struck me.

First, that this is a well-known chapter on faith in which Old Testament pillars such as Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob are set out as the best examples for generations to follow in their walk with the Lord. Yet, it begins with a faith requirement that we believe God formed the universe at His command. This clearly points to the importance of taking God at His word literally and from the beginning of both time and the Bible.

Second, there is such a striking parallel between the biblical account of Creation and the Big Bang Theory. That is, secular scientists want people to believe that all the visible matter of the universe was created during a one-time, random explosion that converted visible matter out of invisible matter and energy as well as order out of chaos. Yet secularists are so hypocritical that they refuse to call this faith.

Truth is, there is little scientific evidence to support such a theory. What’s more, scientists will never prove the Earth and all its contents are the result of converting visible matter from invisible matter and energy. It’s a physical impossibility. We simply cannot recreate the world. We can’t even recreate a microcosm of such an event in the laboratory. And I will only briefly mention that entropy contradicts the random creation of order from disorder.

So there you have it. Christians and non-Christians are alike. They each have faith in something they cannot see or prove. One faith is based on an intelligent and all powerful God, the other in random, spontaneous nothingness.

My time in meditation that morning left me to further conclude that the creation of the world is no less doable by God than the virgin birth. And although I am no expert on ranking miracles, I have no trouble including creation among them.

Besides, the thought of God forming the universe at His command reminds me of something more personal: the idea that only a God, who could form the universe out of nothing at all, really holds the power to transform a broken life into one worth living. That, of course, is God’s miracle of salvation.

With the return of a new year, my expositions will undoubtedly return to more scientific and legal discussions. But for now – and to all of you reading this column – may the spirit of this holy and miraculous season bring you and all those you love peace and happiness.